Then she and Anton rounded a corner, and the pirate hesitated. Fearing someone had recognized him for the fugitive he was, she cast about to locate the threat. But no one was gaping at them, reaching for a weapon, or making a hasty retreat, and after a heartbeat, Anton simply tramped on. Now, though, he scowled and quickened his stride.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he replied.
Only somewhat reassured, she kept on studying their surroundings until she finally realized something. While none of the nearby shops and houses looked clean and new-months of unrelenting rain had torn tiles and shingles loose and flaked paint off walls-nothing looked unmistakably old, either. Which made this street different than the last one, or many another in Sapra.
“This is a part of town the demons destroyed,” she said. “Where everything had to be rebuilt.”
“Yes,” Anton said.
“And it bothers you to picture it burning again.”
“No, because I don’t let things bother me if I can’t do anything about them. And Shadowmoon, curse her, was right. The navy wouldn’t let me help defend Sapra even if I were stupid enough to volunteer. And our one ship, without an assigned role in the battle plan …” He stopped in his tracks, and his brown eyes widened.
“What?” Umara asked.
It only took him a few breaths to explain. The idea seemed cunning and madcap in equal measure. Just the sort of trick she’d expect him to devise.
She smiled. “Let’s do it.”
He blinked at her immediate acquiescence. “You’re serious?”
“Why not? We’ve seen that Evendur Highcastle can be hurt, and at least inconvenienced by having a ship sunk out from underneath him. If luck favors us, we could tip the scales.” She smiled. “Then I can go home and say, ‘No, I didn’t capture a Chosen for sacrifice. But I did stop the waveservants from becoming the dominant power on the Sea of Fallen Stars and threatening Thayan interests. That’s worth something, isn’t it?’ ”
“Will the crew be game?”
“They have been for everything up until now, and I’m still a Red Wizard. They’ll do as I command.”
Energized, Anton and Umara hurried onward. But as they neared the ramshackle collection of piers that was Sapra Harbor, and she spotted a battered fishing boat sunk to the gunwales in the shallows, it occurred to her that for all she knew, the Octopus might be in much the same condition. If so, she and the reaver would have no way of putting their plan into effect. In fact, if the Turmishan fleet lost the battle at sea, they’d be stuck on Ilighon when Evendur’s armada descended on the island.
She sighed when she saw that she needn’t have feared. Floating at its mooring, the Octopus had sustained some damage to the rigging but was essentially intact. She started down the dock.
Anton gripped her forearm. “Look at the men mending the yards and cordage,” he said.
She did and realized none of them was a sailor or marine who’d sailed with her and Kymas from Bezantur. They were strangers, clad in the green uniforms of the Turmishan navy.
“The thieves commandeered our ship!” she said.
Anton nodded. “With so many of their own disabled, I should have anticipated it.”
“What do we do?”
The pirate grinned. “The next move is fairly obvious, isn’t it? Our men must be somewhere, perhaps squatting in one of the scar pilgrim camps. We start by rounding them up while the navy kindly finishes making repairs on our behalf.”
Anton headed down the benighted pier with as little noise as possible. That was only sensible. But he resisted the urge to stay low or slip from one bit of cover to the next. Even in the rain, that would be foolish behavior for an invisible man moving through the dark. He knew because he couldn’t see any trace of Umara stealing along just a pace or two ahead of him.
She popped into view, though, at the same instant the lookout in the bow fell victim to her spell of slumber. She skulked up the gangplank, and Anton followed.
Anton crept astern and positioned himself beside the hatch leading into the captain’s cabin. Umara lifted a storm lantern down from its hook, climbed up into the bow beside the sentry she’d put to sleep, and waved the light back and forth in the air.
The signal brought the rest of the Thayans sneaking down the dock. Twenty men couldn’t do so as quietly as she and Anton had alone, but the mariners made it onto the ship with only a little noise.
In their hands were scraps of lumber, lengths of chain, and other improvised and pilfered weapons. The Turmishan sailors had confiscated their boarding pikes, cutlasses, crossbows, and such when they’d taken possession of the Octopus, and maybe it was just as well. Anton didn’t want his crew killing anybody, nor should it be necessary to achieve the current objective.
The Thayans’ clothing was different, too, but that was of their own choosing, or rather, Umara’s. She’d ordered them to discard their ragged crimson uniforms and put on whatever they could scrounge amid the current crisis. The results made them appear like a tough-looking but otherwise nondescript company of tramps, which was pretty much the desired effect.
They and Umara surrounded the hatch beneath which the rest of the Turmishans were sleeping out of the rain. The wizard murmured too softly for Anton to hear and swirled her hands in sinuous patterns. Phosphorescent green vapor billowed into existence around her fingers, most of it clinging there, a few wisps trailing as she made the mystic passes. Some of the other Thayans flinched from a stink Anton was too far away to smell, but if it bothered Umara, no one could have known. Her expression of calm concentration never waivered.
She nodded to a sailor to signal that her incantation was coming to an end. He stooped and lifted the hatch.
Umara spoke the final word and thrust her hands down at the opening. Luminous mist streamed down like the steaming breath of a dragon turtle.
Anton could imagine the noxious fog abruptly filling the hold. The putrid reek would wake the sleepers, and the cloud would blind them. Overwhelmed by nausea, many would simply lie where they were and puke. Those with stronger stomachs would struggle to reach uncontaminated air, but even they would blunder on deck coughing and retching with their eyes full of stinging tears, in no condition to withstand the foes awaiting them.
The Thayans subdued the sick men with brutal efficiency and, almost certainly, satisfaction. As they’d complained, the Turmishans had played a trick of their own to dispossess them of the Octopus without even giving them a chance to fight for her, and now they were paying them back.
Of course, they couldn’t do so altogether quietly, without the occasional outcry or crack of wood bashing somebody’s head, and suddenly, the hatch to the captain’s cabin flew open. Still invisible, Anton stuck out his foot to trip the officer when he rushed out with a sword in one hand and a buckler on the other arm.
The captain crashed down on the deck. His hands and arms reappearing in a surge from the fingertips upward, Anton moved to dive on the other man’s back, pin him, and choke him unconscious.
But his opponent, a burly man with a slab of forehead over deep-set eyes and a touch of silver in his square-cut beard, wrenched himself around and slashed. Anton just managed to jerk to a stop in time to keep the sword from slicing his belly.
No one was that fast without magical assistance. The swordsman must have drunk an elixir or recited a charm before coming through the hatch.
Anton stepped back and reached for the hilt of his saber. His opponent started to scramble to his feet. Anton rushed him.
The move startled the Turmishan captain and made him falter for half an instant. Then he tried to put his point in line.